Shamanism by Mircea Eliade

Among the Apinaye shamans are appointed by the soul of a relative, which puts them in relation with the spirits: but it is the latter that impart shamanic knowledge and techniques to them. Among other tribes one becomes a shaman through a spontaneous ecstatic experience—for example, by having a vision of the planet Mars, and so on. Among the Campa and the Amahuaca candidates are instructed by a living or dead shaman.“The apprentice shaman of the Conibo of the Ucayali receives his medical knowledge from a spirit. To enter into relations with the spirit the shaman drinks a decoction of tobacco and smokes as much as possible in a hermetically closed hut."The Cashinawa candidate is taught in the bush; souls give him the requisite magical substances and also inoculate his body with them. The Yaruro shamans are taught by their gods, although they learn technique properfrom other shamans. But they do not consider themselves able to practice until they have met a spirit in dream.“In the Apapocuva Guarani tribe, the prerequisite for becoming a shaman is learning magical songs, which are taught by a dead relative in dreams.” But whatever the source of their revelation, all these shamans practice in accordance with the traditional norms of their tribe. “In other words, they conform to rules and a technique that they can have acquired only by going to school to men of experience,” Metraux concludes. This is equally true of any other shamamsm. As we see, if the dead shaman's soul plays an important role in the development of shamanic vocation, it only prepares candidate for later revelations. The souls of dead shamans put him in relation with spirits, or carry him to the sky (cf. Siberia, the Altai, Australia, etc.). These first ecstatic experiences are followed by teaching received from the old shamans. Among the Selk’nam spontaneous vocation is manifested by the young man's strange behavior: he sings in his sleep, and so on. But such a state can also be obtained voluntarily; all that is necessary is to see the spirits.

"Seeing spirits," in dream or awake, is the determining sign of the shamanic vocation, whether spontaneous or voluntary. For, in a manner, having contact with the souls of the dead signifies being dead oneself. This is why, throughout South America, the shaman must so die that he may meet the souls of the dead and receive their teaching; for the dead know everything.

As we said, shamanic election or initiation in South America sometimes preserves the perfect schema of a ritual death and resurrection. But the death can also be suggested by other means: extreme fatigue, tortures, fasting, blows, and so on. When a young Jivaro decides to become a shaman, he looks for a master, pays him the proper fee, and then embarks on an extremely severe regime; for days he does not touch food and drinks narcotic beverages, especially tobacco juice (which is well known to play an essential part in the initiations of South American shamans). Finally a spirit, Pasuka, appears to the candidate in the form of a warrior. The master immediately begins to strike the apprentice until he falls to the ground unconscious. When he comes to himself, his whole body is sore. This proves that the spirit has taken possession of him; and in fact, the sufferings, intoxications, and blows that have brought on his loss of consciousness are in a manner assimilated to a ritual death.

It follows that the souls of the dead, whatever the part they have played in precipitating the vocation or initiation of future shamans, do not create the vocation by their mere presence (possession or not), but serve the candidate as a means of entering into contact with divine or semidivine beings (through ecstatic journeys to the sky and the underworld, etc.) or enable the future shaman to share in the mode of being of the dead. This has been very well brought out by Marcel Mauss in connection with magicat powers being conferred on Australian sorcerers by supernatural revelation.  Here too, the role of the dead often overlaps that of "pure spirits.”  And indeed, even when it is the spirit of a dead man that directly grants the revelation, the latter implies either the initiatory rite of the killing of the candidate followed by his rebirth, or ecstatic journeys to the sky, a peculiarly shamanic theme in which the ancestral spirit plays the role of psychopomp and which, by its very structure, excludes “possession.” It certainly seems that the chief function of the dead in the granting of shamanic powers is less a matter of taking "possession" of the subject than of helping him to become a "dead man"—in short, of helping him to become a "spirit" too.

Witoto Creation Myth

by  Rember Yahuarcani

Cuando terminó el sueño de la creación, Buinaima [el creador] también nos dejó algo de recuerdo. Nos dejó el tabaco. Así nosotros también podemos soñar como él soñó. Esta planta brotó solita del banco donde Buinaima estuvo sentado, soñando durante la noche. Por eso, cuando tomamos tabaco, meditamos concentrados y pensamos en los dióses, y ellos nos aconsejan a través de los sueños.

El tabaco se puede fumar, oler y, también, lamer, cuando se prepara una pasta hecha de hojas machucadas. Lo usamos con respeto y cuidado, porque el tabaco es un gran caminante. Quienes lo han visto en sueños dicen que es un hombre muy delgado, casi un esqueleto. Anda por el espacio apoyado sobre un bastón donde crecen sus hojas, y lleva un collar de calaveras y rodillas. Son los huesos de nuestros antepasados, tan antiguos y espectrales como su humo blanco. Parece estar cansado, pero sigue caminando, trayéndonos para siempre el recuerdo de todo lo que ha pasado desde que la Tierra y todas las cosas se formaron.

En sueños nos reencontramos con Buinaima, el creador, JusÍguna, el niño-árbol, y Buiñaiño, la madre del agua de quien nació todo lo que existe cuando Buinaima sopló e iluminó el agua con su blanca saliva. Desde entonces, Buinaima lleva un arco iris en la cabellera y sueña a colores, y nosotros también soñamos, porque la vida es el sueño a colores del creador. Vivimos y soñamos con todos los colores con que se viste Buiñaiño cuando se yergue sosteniendo el firmamento para salvamos de la tormenta y hacer que el sol vuelva a brillar. Nosotros también soñamos, porque la vida es el sueño a colores del creador. Vivimos y soñamos con todos los colores con que se viste Buiñaiño cuando se yergue sosteniendo el firmamento para salvarnos de la tormenta y hacer que el sol vuelva a brillar.

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When he finished the dream of creation, Buinaima [the Creator], left us something to remember him by. He left us tobacco. In this way we can dream like He dreamt. This plant grew alone by the mound where Buinaima sat, dreaming throughout the night. That’s why, when we take tobacco, we concentrate in meditation and think of the gods, and they advice us through our dreams.

Tobacco can be smoked, inhaled, and also chewed when it’s prepared in a paste made from crushed leaves. We use it with respect and caution, because tobacco is a great traveler. Those who have envisioned him in dreams say that he is a very thin man, almost like a skeleton. He walks in space, aided by a cane where his leaves grow, and he wears a necklace of skulls and knees. They are the bones of our ancestors, so old and ghostly like his white smoke. He looks like he’s tired, but he keeps walking, always carrying for us the memory of all that has happened since the earth and her creation formed.

In dreams we reconnect to Buinaima, the Creator, to Jusíguna, the tree-child, and to Buiñaiño, the mother of water from whom was born all that exists when Buinaima blew and illuminated the water with his white saliva. Since then, Buinaima wears a rainbow in his head of hair and dreams in color, and we also dream, because life is the dream of colors from the creator. We live and we dream in all the colors with which Buiñaiño is dressed when she stands up, holding the heavens to save us from storms and make the sun rise and shine again.

from The Three Halves of Ino Moxo

"The viracocha—that is to say, the whites—long ago lived in a lagoon,” ponders Don Juan Tuesta, with eyes closed, in the full of an ayawaskha night. Somebody who is not Don Juan Tuesta, but is Don Juan Tuesta, has occupied his body, overflows it without containment, and comes out through his dreamwalker mouth.

Near the virakocha lived the Campa—in other words the Ashaninka. On a certain day, a Campa heard barking noises coming from the lagoon. "Well, I'll fish that dog,” and to do that he took some bananas with him. But since bananas are food for human beings, the dog was offended and refused to eat them. In turn, all of the virakocha came out of the lagoon and began to pursue, then kill, the Campa. They killed all of the Campa. The lagoon dried out. A single Campa survived, a sorcerer, one of those sorcerers called shirimpiáre: a Campa who used tobacco. Because you should know that not all sorcerers use tobacco, only shirimpiáre do. The other sorcerers have other spaces and a different name; they are called katziboréri. The surviving shirimpiáre invoked Tziho, the buzzard, and said, "Come, help me—the virakocha have killed all my brothers." "Where?" asked Tziho. "Everywhere," the Campa shirimpiáre answered, "but mainly in the Great Pajonal." You should know that the Great Pajonal, Don Juan Tuesta tells me, is the territory of the Campa nation, more than one hundred thousand square kilometers of pure flat jungle, an infinite plateau in the middle of the great forests and rivers that adjoin the High Amazon jungle, in the direction of Cusco. It was there, in the Great Pajonal, that the Campa resisted the Inka conquerors, repelled the Spanish conquerors...